Saturday, August 19, 2023

My Thoughts and More on Love's True Calling by Lori DeJong

About the Book

Book: Love’s True Calling

Author: Lori DeJong

Genre: Contemporary Christian Romance

Release Date: June 27, 2023

After years of jumping through other people’s hoops to be all they thought she should be, and enduring a tragedy no mother should, self-described “newbie” Christian, Harper Townsend, has finally found her true calling … and her true love. Until it appears that to follow one may mean leaving the other behind.

Adolescent Psychologist, Wyatt McCowan, is beyond delighted to have the-girl-that-got-away back in his life, and his heart. But even as they fall more in love, he realizes that being obedient to God’s calling on each of their lives may pull them apart. She rejected him once in favor of another, which left him hurt and angry. But this time, he can’t fault her for following hard after the God she loves with all her heart, even if it means leaving him once again.

Click here to get your copy!

My Thoughts:

Love. What is love really and what can it look like? Well, this is a story of second chances for the main couple and for the kids in their ministry that they are trying to help. It is also of a story of looking past the cover, so to speak, to go skin deep into the life of someone who is hurting. Not to judge a person by their haves or haves not.

Wyatt and Harper had been the best of friends. Then during their teenage years, Wyatt was considered nerdy and picked on, while Harper grew into a beauty. Their friendship broke down after Wyatt confessed his feelings to her and life got out of control. Wyatt left with a bruised, broken heart and a new purpose for life. Harper did what everybody told her to do.

Then one fateful day they meet again, he a professor and she a student. What happens is a whirlwind of getting to know each other again, Harper becoming involved in Wyatt's ministry, and the help they are giving to kids who don't quite fit in. Until Harper, who has learned a thing or two about herself after a terrible heartbreak, sees another need. One Wyatt does not. Are they to be forever apart due to class status?

This was a very uplifting read of growing past life's hurdle, tragedies, and mistakes and pursuing a present and future that is joyous and a help for others. This story does deal with some hard topics such as bullying, suicide, a child's death, and divorce. In the end, will Wyatt and Harper realize that their best work is together? Second chances for everyone.

I received a copy of this novel from the author. I was not required to post a positive review and all views and opinions are my own.

About the Author

Lori enjoys writing stories full of grace and the redemptive power of God’s love that inspire hope, joy, laughter, and perhaps even touch a soul or two to get to know Him better. She resides in Georgetown, Texas, with her husband and two fur-babies and is the mother of one grown daughter. Love’s True Calling is the 2022 winner of the ACFW Genesis Award for Romance.

More from Lori

I’ve had a dream for a very long time. In fact, I had this dream long before I was even doing anything to achieve it! Turns out I’ve wanted to be a published author since the 1990’s. And I didn’t even start writing, join writers’ groups, or attend conferences to learn the craft until 2002. Something inside me apparently knew more than I did when I put on my 1996 long-term goals list: To be a published author.

Fast forward to 2023 and my debut novel is being published. I’m not great at math, but even I know that’s A LOT of years that have gone by since I first identified that long-term goal. So the take-away from that should be, if you set a goal, no matter what it is, make a plan. Immediately. Not years later. Seriously. Don’t be me.

So, I chugged away at this writing goal for a few years, until my husband was laid off when the economy tanked in 2009 and our lives turned upside down. I didn’t write again until 2020, when we found ourselves empty-nesters and I started listening once again to those voices in my head begging me to write their stories.

Which brings me to how my first published novel was born. Would you believe it was homework? True story! When I came back to writing in 2020, I needed to re-hone my skills. So I took an online class that required us to plot an entire manuscript based on our characters’ motivations. What do they want out of life and why do they want it?

That’s how I came up with Wyatt, the high school geek now an accomplished and handsome college professor and adolescent psychologist, and Harper, the high school Miss Everything who’d weathered plenty of storms in her life before going back to school a decade after graduation to finally get her degree. What happens when Wyatt sees the girl who broke his teenage heart sitting in his class?

I plotted out this story as homework, never intending to write it. But I fell in love with these two and they were clamoring for me to tell their story. Two years later, that story won the ACFW Genesis award and is now being published by Scrivenings Press. Best takeaway from that? Never. Ever. Give. Up.

Who knew that a class assignment could bring about the realization of a twenty-some-odd-year-old goal? Make a dream come true? God did. And I’m so glad I listened to Him as I put this story to paper.

I hope you’ll read and enjoy Love’s True Calling, a story of love rediscovered, the joy of finding purpose, and the blessing of obedience.